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The hyper-rational side of his personality that Arthur Conan Doyle aired in his Sherlock Holmes series of detective tales was only one piece of the puzzle. Conan Doyle also had a mystical side, and he was fascinated by the supernatural and the occult. In the epistolary stories collected in The Stark Munro Letters, he masterfully combines both of his passions, exploring supernatural themes from the perspective of a master detective.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 décembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775450375
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS
* * *
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

*

The Stark Munro Letters First published in 1895 ISBN 978-1-775450-37-5 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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The Stark Munro Letters I - Home, 30th March, 1881 II - Home, 10th April, 1881 III - Home, 15th October, 1881 IV - Home, 1st December, 1881 V - Merton on the Moors, 5th March, 1882 VI - The Parade, Bradfield, 7th March, 1882 VII - The Parade, Bradfield, 9th March, 1882 VIII - The Parade, Bradfield, 6th April, 1882 IX - The Parade, Bradfield, 23rd April, 1882 X - Cadogan Terrace, Birchespool, 21st May, 1882 XI - Oakley Villas, Birchespool, 29th May, 1882 XII - Oakley Villas, Birchespool, 5th June, 1882 XIII - Oakley Villas, Birchespool, 12th June, 1882 XIV - Oakley Villas, Birchespool, 15th January, 1883 XV - Oakley Villas, Birchespool, 3rd August, 1883 XVI - Oakley Villas, Birchespool, 4th November, 1884
The Stark Munro Letters
*
By J. Stark Munro
BEING A SERIES OF TWELVE LETTERS WRITTEN BY J. STARK MUNRO, M.B., TO HIS FRIEND AND FORMER FELLOW-STUDENT, HERBERT SWANBOROUGH, OF LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS, DURING THE YEARS 1881-1884
Edited And Arranged By A. Conan Doyle
The letters of my friend Mr. Stark Munro appear to me to form soconnected a whole, and to give so plain an account of some of thetroubles which a young man may be called upon to face right away at theoutset of his career, that I have handed them over to the gentleman whois about to edit them. There are two of them, the fifth and the ninth,from which some excisions are necessary; but in the main I hope thatthey may be reproduced as they stand. I am sure that there is noprivilege which my friend would value more highly than the thought thatsome other young man, harassed by the needs of this world and doubtsof the next, should have gotten strength by reading how a brother hadpassed down the valley of shadow before him.
HERBERT SWANBOROUGH.
LOWELL, MASS.
I - Home, 30th March, 1881
*
I have missed you very much since your return to America, my dearBertie, for you are the one man upon this earth to whom I have ever beenable to unreservedly open my whole mind. I don't know why it is; for,now that I come to think of it, I have never enjoyed very much of yourconfidence in return. But that may be my fault. Perhaps you don't findme sympathetic, even though I have every wish to be. I can only say thatI find you intensely so, and perhaps I presume too much upon the fact.But no, every instinct in my nature tells me that I don't bore you by myconfidences.
Can you remember Cullingworth at the University? You never were in theathletic set, and so it is possible that you don't. Anyway, I'll take itfor granted that you don't, and explain it all from the beginning. I'msure that you would know his photograph, however, for the reason that hewas the ugliest and queerest-looking man of our year.
Physically he was a fine athlete—one of the fastest and most determinedRugby forwards that I have ever known, though he played so savage a gamethat he was never given his international cap. He was well-grown, fivefoot nine perhaps, with square shoulders, an arching chest, and a quickjerky way of walking. He had a round strong head, bristling with shortwiry black hair. His face was wonderfully ugly, but it was the uglinessof character, which is as attractive as beauty. His jaw and eyebrowswere scraggy and rough-hewn, his nose aggressive and red-shot, his eyessmall and near set, light blue in colour, and capable of assuming avery genial and also an exceedingly vindictive expression. A slight wirymoustache covered his upper lip, and his teeth were yellow, strong, andoverlapping. Add to this that he seldom wore collar or necktie, that histhroat was the colour and texture of the bark of a Scotch fir, and thathe had a voice and especially a laugh like a bull's bellow. Then youhave some idea (if you can piece all these items in your mind) of theoutward James Cullingworth.
But the inner man, after all, was what was most worth noting. I don'tpretend to know what genius is. Carlyle's definition always seemed to meto be a very crisp and clear statement of what it is NOT. Far from itsbeing an infinite capacity for taking pains, its leading characteristic,as far as I have ever been able to observe it, has been that it allowsthe possessor of it to attain results by a sort of instinct which othermen could only reach by hard work. In this sense Cullingworth was thegreatest genius that I have ever known. He never seemed to work, and yethe took the anatomy prize over the heads of all the ten-hour-a-daymen. That might not count for much, for he was quite capable of idlingostentatiously all day and then reading desperately all night; butstart a subject of your own for him, and then see his originality andstrength. Talk about torpedoes, and he would catch up a pencil, and onthe back of an old envelope from his pocket he would sketch out somenovel contrivance for piercing a ship's netting and getting at her side,which might no doubt involve some technical impossibility, but whichwould at least be quite plausible and new. Then as he drew, hisbristling eyebrows would contract, his small eyes would gleam withexcitement, his lips would be pressed together, and he would end bybanging on the paper with his open hand, and shouting in his exultation.You would think that his one mission in life was to invent torpedoes.But next instant, if you were to express surprise as to how it was thatthe Egyptian workmen elevated the stones to the top of the pyramids, outwould come the pencil and envelope, and he would propound a scheme fordoing that with equal energy and conviction. This ingenuity was joinedto an extremely sanguine nature. As he paced up and down in his jerkyquick-stepping fashion after one of these flights of invention, he wouldtake out patents for it, receive you as his partner in the enterprise,have it adopted in every civilised country, see all conceivableapplications of it, count up his probable royalties, sketch out thenovel methods in which he would invest his gains, and finally retirewith the most gigantic fortune that has ever been amassed. And you wouldbe swept along by his words, and would be carried every foot of theway with him, so that it would come as quite a shock to you when yousuddenly fell back to earth again, and found yourself trudging the citystreet a poor student, with Kirk's Physiology under your arm, and hardlythe price of your luncheon in your pocket.
I read over what I have written, but I can see that I give you no realinsight into the demoniac cleverness of Cullingworth. His views uponmedicine were most revolutionary, but I daresay that if things fulfiltheir promise I may have a good deal to say about them in the sequel.With his brilliant and unusual gifts, his fine athletic record, hisstrange way of dressing (his hat on the back of his head and his throatbare), his thundering voice, and his ugly, powerful face, he had quitethe most marked individuality of any man that I have ever known.
Now, you will think me rather prolix about this man; but, as it looksas if his life might become entwined with mine, it is a subject ofimmediate interest to me, and I am writing all this for the purposeof reviving my own half-faded impressions, as well as in the hope ofamusing and interesting you. So I must just give you one or two otherpoints which may make his character more clear to you.
He had a dash of the heroic in him. On one occasion he was placed insuch a position that he must choose between compromising a lady, orspringing out of a third-floor window. Without a moment's hesitation hehurled himself out of the window. As luck would have it, he fell througha large laurel bush on to a garden plot, which was soft with rain, andso escaped with a shaking and a bruising. If I have to say anything thatgives a bad impression of the man, put that upon the other side.
He was fond of rough horse-play; but it was better to avoid it with him,for you could never tell what it might lead to. His temper was nothingless than infernal. I have seen him in the dissecting-rooms begin toskylark with a fellow, and then in an instant the fun would go out ofhis face, his little eyes would gleam with fury, and the two would berolling, worrying each other like dogs, below the table. He wouldbe dragged off, panting and speechless with fury, with his wiry hairbristling straight up like a fighting terrier's.
This pugnacious side of his character would be worthily used sometimes.I remember that an address which was being given to us by an eminentLondon specialist was much interrupted by a man in the front row, whoamused himself by interjecting remarks. The lecturer appealed to hisaudience at last. "These interruptions are insufferable, gentlemen,"said he; "will no one free me from this annoyance?" "Hold yourtongue—you, sir, on the front bench," cried Cullingworth, in hisbull's bellow. "Perhaps you'll make me," said the fellow, turning acontemptuous face over his shoulder. Cullingworth closed his note-book,and began to walk down on the tops of the desks to the delight of thethree hundred spectators. It was fine to see the deliberate way in whichhe picked his way among the ink bottles. As he sprang down from the lastbench on to the floor, his opponent struck him a smashing blow full inthe face. Cullingworth got his bulldog grip on him, however, and rushedhim backwards out of the class-room. What h